Take Me Home
by La Fenris
Summary: Late one night while on patrol, Nite Owl and Rorschach find a lost girl and give her a ride home. Twice.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Written for a Watchmen urban legend prompt.

Warnings: Child death (offscreen), supernatural elements, urban legend.  
Characters: Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II, Walter K/Rorschach, OC  
Disclaimer: Yet again, I sadly own none of the WM characters.

* * *

It's a long walk back to Archie and neither of them is in the best of moods. The tip they got earlier tonight about a truckload of stolen medical equipment and supplies being delivered to its new (non-legal) owners did not pan out at all. After spending several cold, uncomfortable hours staking out the supposed rendezvous point, all that the Nite Owl-Rorschach team has to show for their troubles is the sighting of one skinny stray dog and numerous bold and healthy-looking specimens of _Rattus Norvegicus_.

As they near a derelict old factory, Rorschach growls and cracks his knuckles. The noise seems particularly loud to Dan in the hushed darkness of the deserted street. Anger roughening his voice, Rorschach grouses at his partner. "Complete waste of time tonight. Think we need to discuss the quality of his informants with Happy Harry, Nite Owl."

Dan nods. "Think you're right. I say we head by the bar and pay him a visit." Rorschach cracks his knuckles again with a satisfied "_Hrm_", and his pace quickens.

They're almost past the factory when both men hear it. They simultaneously stiffen and stop in their tracks, listening. Like hunting dogs on point casting around for the source of a scent, Nite Owl and Rorschach turn slowly, their senses hyper-alert. It doesn't take long to pinpoint where the high-pitched childish weeping is coming from. They head down an alley that runs between the shuttered factory and another vacant building with a faded 'For Sale' sign in its front window.

She's sitting on a crate next to a kicked-in door, a young girl of no more than seven or eight years old, clutching a bedraggled doll and sobbing her heart out. The sight of her melts Dan's own heart instantly, and from the noise his partner makes deep in his throat he knows that Rorschach feels the same mix of pity and astonishment; because what in the world is a child this young doing all alone out here at almost two in the morning? There's nothing residential around here for at least a mile, maybe more.

Rorschach snaps out of it before Dan does and moves toward the girl. As he watches his partner approach the child, something occurs to Dan and he reverses their usual roles and becomes the cautious one, hanging back and looking all around. If the criminals they came to catch tonight failed to show up because someone tipped them off that Nite Owl and Rorschach were waiting for them, the perfect bait for a trap would be a crying child out by herself in a dangerous area.

So Dan palms a throwing crescent and goes on high alert, scanning the rooftops and doorways for any signs of a waiting ambush as his partner, who's intent only on not scaring the girl, walks slowly toward her.

Rorschach stops a few feet away from her and says, "Why are you here by yourself? Where are your parents?"

When his partner speaks, Dan's a bit taken aback because Rorschach's voice has none of its usual gravel or menacing growl about it; it's lighter and slightly husky. With a thrill, Dan recognizes a voice he's heard only a few times before, in those rare moments when Rorschach drops his guard completely and forgets himself around Dan. It's the voice that his partner uses when he's not being Rorschach. This is the voice that people who know him without the mask must hear all the time, and Dan feels a momentary irrational pang of jealousy toward those people.

The girl looks up, sniffling, and takes in the sight of them in their costumes without a hint of astonishment or fear. Dan marvels at the ability of the young to take the most outlandish things in stride. Turning the doll nervously in her hands, she looks away and stares at the graffiti on the factory wall before turning back to Rorschach and saying in a near-whisper, "They're not here. I got lost."

Rorschach hunkers down in front of the girl and quietly asks what her name is. Still hanging back and watching for a potential ambush, Dan observes his partner's gentle demeanor with fascination.

The girl studies Rorschach's mask, watching its black splotches morph lazily into different shapes on the ghostly white background. She seems more interested than unnerved by the shifting patterns. Then she jumps a bit, remembering that he asked her a question.

"It's Melanie. Melanie Davis." Her face crumples and she bursts into fresh tears. "My mom is going to be so mad at me. I'm not supposed to go this far away from home by myself. And I'm not supposed to be outside this late. She's going to _kill_ me."

Rorschach's quick to reach out toward her and lightly touches her arm, saying "No. She won't. Your parents will be glad to know you're safe."

So far Dan hasn't heard or seen any signs that this is a trap, so he steps up beside Rorschach and smiles down at the girl. "Hello, Melanie. My name is Nite Owl and this," he drops his hand onto his partner's shoulder, "is Rorschach."

There's a moment of silence as she looks him over, taking in everything from his boots to his equipment belt to his goggles and mask. Dan considers pushing the goggles up so she can have at least one pair of human eyes to reference between himself and his partner, but decides against it. He doesn't want to get the customary Rorschach lecture later on about keeping his identity secure, plus he's not a hundred percent sure yet that this isn't some kind of trap.

Rorschach tries again. "Melanie. Tell us why you're here alone this late at night."

Before answering him, Melanie moves her lips, silently breaking out the sound of Rorschach's name before attempting to say the odd combination of syllables out loud. Finally she looks down, scuffing at the concrete with one black and white saddle shoe and says in a near-whisper (getting the pronunciation of Rorschach's name almost right), "Mister Rorschach. I went out after breakfast to play safari, sir, and I saw a little kitten all by itself. And...and, I was trying to catch it and take it home because it was all alone and just a little baby, and I thought something must have happened to its mom...but it ran in there."

She points through the broken-in doorway into the dark interior of the factory. "So I went inside to look for it. I looked for a long, long time because I could still hear it crying, but I couldn't find it. Then I tripped and fell down and got a bump on my noggin, see?" She points to her forehead. Dan can't see any obvious injury, but nods at her anyway to be agreeable. Rorschach leans in to see and nods at her too before shooting Dan a look and shrugging.

Oblivious to this byplay, Melanie continues, starting to tear up again. "After that I wanted to go home, but it was dark outside and I got lost, and I don't know how to get home. I want to go home, I don't like it here. It's too dark and I can hear bad things walking around." Fresh tears running down her cheeks, she clutches her doll close and fiddles with the shoulder strap of her purse.

The purse is a shiny little vinyl affair adorned with a group of anthropomorphic animal cartoon characters playing electric guitars against a cheery background of swirly psychedelic colors and pop art daisies. Dan's pretty sure that his partner doesn't approve of the pocketbook's hippie decor and will have something to say later on about indoctrinating young children into the drug culture by using subversive cartoons. But right now, all Rorschach does is hold out his hand to her and say, "Come on. We'll take you home".

"You'll take me home?" She sounds like she just can't believe that they will actually do it. When Rorschach nods an affirmation, she jumps up and throws her arms around him, sobbing "Thank you, thank you".

Dan tries not to grin as his partner stiffens up inside her enthusiastic embrace, patting the girl's hair awkwardly. Obviously discomfited, Rorschach says, "All right, Melanie. Let's go," and tries to gently ease her away from him. But she's not having any of that and clings tight as a limpet, with no discernable plans to let go anytime soon. It almost seems as if she's afraid that if she lets go, he'll change his mind and leave her here after all.

Rorschach turns his head toward Dan, who has no trouble interpreting the gesture as an appeal for help. Rorschach has an obvious mile-wide soft streak for children and he throws himself manically into any case that involves harm to them. And his ruthless fury when they find someone hurting a child is frankly scary. But when it comes to actually handling children, he's painfully ill at ease.

Dan sees that the girl is blue-lipped and shivering, and dressed far too lightly for the crisp autumn night in a short-sleeved yellow blouse and green pedal pushers. Once they get back to Archie he can get her a blanket, but she needs something warm to wear right now. He taps Rorschach's shoulder. "Hey, she looks half-frozen. We need to do something to keep her warm until we get back to Archie."

His partner nods. "I know, Nite Owl. Can feel she's too cold." Rorschach then says in a firm voice, "Melanie. Let go of me now. I have to stand up."

The unequivocal command evidently penetrates her frenzy of relief and she finally lets go, her pale little hands moving to clutch at her doll instead of at him. She still looks worried that they're going to turn and run away from her. Rorschach, on the other hand, looks much more at ease now.

Dan is moving to unfasten his cape when he realizes that Rorschach's taking off his trench coat. He's just about to point out that the coat will drag the ground if she wears it when he sees that his partner's also removing his suit jacket and clams up.

Rorschach quickly transfers a few items from the jacket to the trench coat, then offers it like a polite gentleman holding out his dinner companion's coat for her to shrug into. "You're cold. Put this on."

The girl obediently slips into his jacket, and he buttons it up in front. Of course the jacket is far too big for her, but it doesn't drag the ground, which is what's important. She runs an admiring hand down the jacket sleeve. "I like purple."

Rorschach nods. "Me, too. Better?" She smiles at him. "Yes."

Dan grins at the comical sight of her tiny frame enveloped in the pinstriped folds of Rorschach's suit jacket and says, "Good! Now let's get you home."

~~o~~o~~

The journey back to Archie takes a while, since the two men must slow their pace down to match that of their small companion's. As they walk, Dan asks for her home address, which she readily gives to him. Her street doesn't ring a bell with Dan, but it will be easy enough to consult Archie's street atlas and pinpoint the girl's home. It can't be too far away, since she got here on foot.

Shortly after giving Dan her address, Melanie tugs tentatively at Dan's cape. When he looks down at her she asks, "Are we very far from my house?"

Dan smiles at her. "I'm not sure yet, honey. I'm going to look at my maps when we get back to Archie and find out exactly where your house is. Then I can tell you how far away we are."

"Who's Archie?"

"Archie is my airship. He's like an airplane, but he doesn't need wings to fly."

"Oh." She digests that for a moment, then asks, "Why is he called Archie? Is it like Archie and Jughead?"

Rorschach barks out a short laugh and says, "Yes, actually." Dan restrains a third-grader's impulse to punch his partner in the arm and instead grins at her, saying, "No, not like Archie and Jughead. Do you know who Merlin the Magician is?"

She brightens. "Yes! My mom took me to see 'The Sword in the Stone' last year."

"Well, I named my flying ship after Merlin's pet owl, Archimedes. Archie for short, because he looks a little bit like an owl. You'll see when we get there."

When they get there and she sees Archie, he meets with her immediate approval and she jumps excitedly, exclaiming that he looks _exactly_ like an owl. Once inside the airship, Dan retrieves a thick wool blanket and wraps it around her after she reluctantly takes off the suit jacket and gives it back to Rorschach.

When he puts his jacket back on, Dan's partner shudders at the residual chill and cocks his head at the girl. "You're still too cold. Sure you're all right?"

She nods an affirmative, but as Dan wraps her up in the blanket he realizes that Rorschach's right; her skin is still icy. It's concerning, but she seems lively enough; just cold. Dan reassures himself that the warmth of Archie's interior and some hot chocolate should do the trick and get her warmed up. "There. It's not as pretty as Rorschach's coat, but it's warmer. You keep that wrapped around you, now. Okay?"

After that there's a quick, curious round of the airship's interior as Melanie takes in all the new and fascinating objects there while Dan makes two cups of hot chocolate; one for her and one for his partner.

Dan parks her in the pilot's chair and she sits and drinks her cocoa while he consults Archie's street atlas and locates her house. He's astonished at how much distance the girl has covered on foot. It shouldn't take too long to get her home, although they'll have to find a suitable place to park Archie where the airship can remain hidden, which can be tricky in a residential neighborhood.

Takeoff is delayed, though, because after Melanie's had some hot chocolate and a few minutes to mull things over, she evidently remembers that she's going to be in a horrendous amount of trouble once she gets home and starts weeping loudly again.

Looking like he'd rather be fighting twenty well-armed Knot Tops, Rorschach kneels next to the chair and stiffly pats her arm, trying to get her to stop. Dan frantically racks his brain for ideas, then inspiration strikes. He rummages around in one of Archie's cabinets and returns clutching a large pad of drawing paper and a handful of colored pencils.

In the meantime, Rorschach's awkward attempt at comfort seems to have, while not stopping her crying altogether, at least dampened the storm down to teary eyes and occasional gulping breaths. Before something can happen to start the waterworks back up again, Dan gestures to get her attention. "Melanie? Can I ask you do a job for us? Do you like to draw?" Her eyes light up and she nods, all shy once more. "Well, neither one of us can draw at all, and I've been trying to find someone who would draw me a picture of Archie, because I'd really like to have one. Do you think you could maybe do that for me?"

Jumping down from the chair, she agrees enthusiastically and takes the proffered paper and pencils. Then she plops down to sit tailor-fashion on an open patch of floor and starts drawing. As Melanie works, she hums and sings to herself, seemingly quite over her panic about what her parents are going to say or do when she gets home.

The trip takes much longer than it normally would, because Dan has to cruise at almost their slowest speed in order to use Archie's fog generator to mask their low-flying presence in a residential area. As Dan guides Archie into Queens, he and Rorschach carry on a quiet conversation about whether they should go by Happy Harry's bar tomorrow night, since it will be closed by the time they've finished dropping Melanie off; or whether tonight's no-show warrants the extra intimidation factor of visiting Harry at home.

Every so often as they putter along, Dan or Rorschach turn to check on their passenger, who is assiduously wearing the points off a set of Dan's best colored drafting pencils and singing off-key to herself as she does. As the two men talk, her high voice pipes a background accompaniment to their sotto-voce conversation. After a while, Dan pauses to listen to the lyrics. Rorschach falls silent and cocks his head, also listening.

"_One banana, two banana, three banana four, Four bananas make a bunch and so do many more. Four banana, three banana, two banana, one. All bananas playing in the bright warm sun. Tra la la, la la la la, Tra la la la..._"

Fighting to keep from laughing, Dan grins and mouths "_Likes bananas_," at Rorschach, who snorts and nods, glancing toward the girl who's still entirely absorbed in her drawing, oblivious to this byplay.

Rorschach turns back to Dan and quietly says, "Giving her a job was a good idea, Daniel." Dan shrugs and says, "It's what my mother used to do when I was a little kid and got cranky or bored. I figured it might work with her, too."

A little while later, she gets up and approaches Dan, shyly holding out a piece of paper. "Sir, is this okay? There's Archie, see? And I drew you, too, right next to him. And I drew Mr. Rorschach, too, see?"

Looking rather proud of her own initiative in expanding the portraiture to include Archie's crew as well as Archie, she hands the drawing to Dan. As Dan looks her masterpiece over, Rorschach gets up to stand behind him and get a look at it himself.

Archie's surprisingly well done, considering she only got a brief look at his exterior; she's gotten the general shape, the round front windows and the sweeping top crest pretty accurately for a seven year old.

Dan grins as he takes in his partner's portrait. She's obviously more impressed by Rorschach's hat than any other part of his uniform; it's huge in comparison to the rest of him. If the proportions were translated into real life, Dan reflects, his partner would look like he was wearing a sombrero. Rorschach's face is, unsurprisingly, a mass of black and white scribbles but Dan notices with approval that she seems to have made an effort to make the black squiggles symmetrical. The rest of his partner looks very bricklike-he's basically a brown rectangle with a few slashes to represent the coat's belt, straight brown pipes for arms and purple ones for legs.

Dan's representation is even more unflattering; he's represented as a wide brown oval (evidently the most impressive part of his uniform is the cape) with sticklike legs, and his cowl is crowned with pointed ears that look like thin spiky horns. Round yellow goggle lenses and a goofy-looking smile complete his picture.

Rorschach reaches out to tap Nite Owl's rotund portrait and Dan can hear the barely suppressed chuckle in his voice as he says, "Need to lay off the chocolate cake, Nite Owl." Melanie snickers at that, and Rorschach looks at her and says, "Right?" She hides her mouth behind her hand and nods, still giggling.

In mock indignation, Dan protests "Hey!", smiling to show her that he's not really upset. Elated to see her so cheerful now after her earlier distress, he says, "Thank you Melanie, you did a _great_ job. This is just what I wanted." At his side, Rorschach nods his head and agrees.

She beams at them both, then gasps, "Ooh! I want to add something," and practically snatches it back out of his hands. She scurries back to plop down onto the floor and starts drawing again. Grinning, Dan checks Archie's controls and resumes his quiet conversation with Rorschach. Starting to feel much better about this evening, Dan reflects that although they didn't catch any thieves tonight, they have still done well.


	2. Chapter 2

They get lucky when they reach Melanie's neighborhood; there's a small office building only a short walk away from her home address and the parking lot in back of it is empty and mostly screened by trees. Dan sets down in the parking lot and rises from the pilot's seat. Stretching to work a small kink out of his back, he turns and says, "Okay, Missy. Your house is right down the street from here. Time to get you home-"

He breaks off and looks around in confusion. The pencils and some pieces of paper are still scattered on the floor where the girl was sitting, but she's not there. Neither is the drawing of Archie. Rorschach rises out of the co-pilot seat and looks around, obviously just as perplexed as Dan. He calls, "Melanie!" and '_hrms'_ when there is no answer.

Both of them are surprised, but not yet alarmed; Dan deduces that Melanie's evidently grown comfortable enough around them that she feels safe in playing a little joke. Or, now that her homecoming is imminent, she's back to worrying about the expected punishment from her parents and wants to put off finding out what it will be for a little bit longer.

"All right, I get it. Hide and seek," Dan says, looking at Rorschach, who shrugs at him. "Okay, we'll play."

Fifteen minutes later, they stop searching and look at each other, now truly alarmed. They've searched every square inch of Archie with increasing intensity, looked in every space that could hold anything bigger than a housecat, and there is no sign of Melanie.

"Well, where the heck did she go?" Utterly mystified, Dan takes another look around and shakes his head, bewildered. "She must have gotten out of the ship somehow, but I don't see how. We would have noticed if she opened one of the doors, don't you think?"

Rorschach turns to face him, obviously agitated. "Yes, but...I don't know, Daniel." And it's the use of his real name which convinces Dan that his partner is sure, past any doubt, that the girl's no longer on board Archie. Moving past Dan, Rorschach opens the side door and looks back over his shoulder. "Daniel, we have to tell her parents that we found her. No idea how she got out of the ship, but she obviously did. Maybe she ran home; she might already be at her house."

Dan sighs and takes a last look around Archie's empty interior before following him out of the ship. "I sure hope so, buddy. Let's go find out."

After a quick search of the parking lot and around the office building's perimeter to make sure that Melanie isn't hiding nearby, they head down the street to the girl's home address, which turns out to be a modest little Tudor style house.

The man who answers the door, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, is thin and looks prematurely gray. He pushes his horn-rimmed glasses up on his nose and jumps, startled, as he takes in the sight of his oddly attired visitors. For the moment he seems stuck, like he has no idea what on earth to say or do. A half-angry, half-frightened female voice comes from behind him. "Who is it, Ken? What do they want at this hour?"

Ken blinks a few times, makes a false start, then finds his voice. "I...Come here and see."

A middle-aged woman wearing a hastily-belted housecoat comes up behind him and peers through the door, eyes widening as she sees who's on her doorstep. She recovers from the surprise more quickly than her husband and says, "I've read about you two in the papers, I know who you are." Then she looks frightened and moves to peer around them into the dark street. "Are you chasing someone? Do we have to worry about somebody breaking into the house?"

"No, ma'am. It's nothing like that." Dan glances once more at the mailbox to confirm that it does indeed say 'Davis', and continues. "I'm sorry to wake you, but we're here about your daughter. You have a daughter named Melanie, right? Is she here?"

When he says the girl's name, something shuts down behind Mr. Davis' eyes, and his wife inhales deeply, her expression tightening. At Dan's side, Rorschach stiffens and makes a soft noise that puts Dan on immediate alert, because it's a sound of real distress. He realizes that Rorschach sees something badly wrong here and sharpens himself up accordingly.

"Mr. Davis, uh, Mrs. Davis. We found your daughter Melanie earlier tonight. She was wandering around by herself in a pretty dangerous area, so we thought we'd better bring her home." He pauses, not quite sure how to say the next part without making him and his partner sound utterly incompetent, then just forges ahead. "I'm afraid that she slipped out of our...vehicle when we got here, before we realized it. We're parked down the street and we were hoping that she just ran straight home."

Dan pauses, confused, because so far their reaction is nothing like what he expected; they look frightened, not joyous or angry or relieved. He tries again, "Is Melanie here? She knew you were going to be pretty upset with her for being out so late; maybe she snuck in so that she could put off being scolded?"

The woman shakes her head, one hand coming up to cover her mouth, and she starts to cry. Her husband puts an arm around her, looks at Dan and says, "No. No, she's not here. Melanie can't be here."

Rorschach's voice hardens and drops in register as he growls, "What do you mean, she _can't_ be here?" Dan places a pre-emptive calming (restraining) hand on his partner's chest, thinking, _Okay buddy, I agree that doesn't sound good, but let's don't jump to conclusions here, please_.

Mr. Davis continues, suddenly sounding on the verge of tears himself. "Sir, you don't understand. How old would you say the girl you picked up was?"

"Seven, maybe eight years old. Why, how old is your daughter?"

"Melanie disappeared six years ago. She'd be thirteen now."

His wife sobs, a single harsh sound, then turns and walks back into the house. Dan blinks at Davis; sure that he's misunderstood something here. "Wait, are you telling me that your daughter's been gone for-"

"Six years." Davis brusquely cuts him off, finishing Dan's sentence for him. He glances back over his shoulder into the house after his vanished wife, then sighs and turns back to them. "The police looked for her for weeks; they searched the neighborhood, questioned people, but they never found any sign of her. It was like the ground just opened up and swallowed her."

His voice rough with burgeoning anger, Rorschach leans forward and snaps, "How did you _know_ the girl we found was too young to be your daughter? Nite Owl never mentioned her age."

Dan nods, watching Davis' expression keenly because his partner's quite right; he'd said nothing about the girl's age until Davis asked him, so why had Melanie's father not entertained, even for a moment, the hope that their thirteen year old runaway had been found alive and well?

Looking unutterably weary, Davis sighs again and says, "Because this isn't the first time she's tried to come home."

"What?" Next to Dan, Rorschach pulls himself up straight and takes a half-step backward. Dan realizes his partner had been just about to lunge and grab Davis, probably to slam him up against the door and demand an explanation. But out of the possible responses Rorschach had been expecting to hear, it's clear that this wasn't one of them.

Oblivious to his close call, Davis continues. "Two years after she disappeared, a man came to the house and said that he found Melanie wandering around late at night and gave her a ride home. He said that when he got here, she wasn't in the car anymore. She'd just vanished."

He pauses and turns his mouth into what's probably supposed to be a smile, but is more of a grimace. "I thought it was some sort of sick joke. I punched him in the face and knocked him down, told him to get out of here before I called the cops. We just wrote it off as a terrible prank; there are people who do things like that, right?"

Davis pauses to gather himself, then goes on. "A few months later, it happened again. It was a couple of high school kids that time, and they told me the same thing. They were driving late at night and saw Melanie walking down the street all by herself. They picked her up and gave her a ride home, but when they got here she was gone. This time I showed them Melanie's picture, and they said that it was the same girl. Ever since then, at least once a year someone's showed up on our doorstep late at night to tell us they tried to bring Melanie home."

He falls quiet. Dan just stares at him, not sure that he can even begin to process this cherry on top of the very large sundae of weirdness that he and his partner have been force-fed tonight. Rorschach makes a grinding sound deep in his throat, but also says nothing.

Dan knows Rorschach's radar for liars is far more accurate than his own, so he looks to his partner and engages his attention. He tilts his head slightly in Davis' direction and quirks his shoulders, making a slight motion with one hand. Rorschach responds with a slow, almost reluctant headshake. Dan sucks in a deep breath, air hissing through his teeth, because his partner has just indicated that he sees no deception here. This man believes what he's telling them.

When Davis speaks again, there's a brittle edge to his voice. "Look, I know what this sounds like." Dan holds his hand up then, interrupting whatever Davis was going to say next. "Mr. Davis, could you-could we see a picture of your daughter?"

It obviously wasn't what Davis was expecting Dan to say, and it takes him a moment to answer. When he speaks again, his voice is a flat monotone; it's plain that the weight of this thing has crushed some vital part of him. "Sure. Why not? Just wait here."

He returns quickly with a framed picture; it looks to Dan like a school portrait. Smiling up at them from behind the glass, her image trapped under glass like a leaf in amber, is a familiar little girl, her long light brown hair curled and pinned up for her portrait. Rorschach looks at the picture and makes that same odd sound, like he's been punched unexpectedly in the gut.

Feeling numb, Dan hands the picture back. And because there's really nothing else he can think of to say at this point, he says, "Mr. Davis, I'm so sorry. Please accept our apologies for having disturbed you and your wife. Good night." He touches Rorschach's elbow and turns to leave, resisting the impulse to look back.

As they head back to Archie they walk much closer together then they normally do, brushing against each other often. Neither one of them speaks, but they both know where they have to go.

~~o~~o~~

The trip back to the vacant factory takes far less time than the trip to Melanie's house had. It's a big building and searching it is going to take a long time, but they know it has to be done. They pass through the broken doorway and start to cautiously explore the factory's moldering interior.

In a large room littered with broken crates and faded mildew-spotted papers, they spot a patch of darkness at the back of the room and shine a light that way. The light reveals a gaping hole in the floor. Near one edge of the hole there's a square gray bundle that seems out of place in all the dust and trash. Mindful of the way the floor creaks under their boots, they approach the bundle carefully.

Nite Owl's goggles tell him what it is before Rorschach's eyes do, and Dan inhales sharply, sudden ice water drenching the end of his spine. Stopping a few feet away from the jagged lip of the hole, Dan reaches out and snags the bundle. As he does, the floor creaks ominously and he feels Rorschach's hand snap closed around his belt.

Rorschach hangs on like a terrier and leans back, anchoring Dan as he slides the bundle away from the hole. Then Dan hears his partner's sharp intake of breath and hears him growl "_No_," when he gets a good look at it, because _of course_ it's the blanket from Archie that they wrapped around Melanie earlier tonight. Of course. Folded neatly and left for them to find.

When Dan picks the blanket up, a familiar piece of paper falls out of the fold into which it was tucked and drops to the floor. Dan gulps hard against a constriction in his throat when he sees the childishly drawn curves of Archie's portrait.

Being the lighter one by far, Rorschach is the logical choice to brave the creaking floor and shine a light into the hole to see what's down there. He takes the trench coat's belt off, looping one end around his wrist and handing the other end to Dan. Using the belt as a safety line, Rorschach edges cautiously to the lip of the hole and shines his flashlight down into the void.

A few moments later, Dan sees him jerk back slightly with a "_hnk!_" of shock. He turns and steps away from the hole (Dan's heart skips a beat as the floor near the hole's edge creaks and dips under Rorschach's weight), coming back to stand close beside Dan. It's not until he reaches out and puts his hand on Dan's arm, though, that Dan realizes Rorschach is trembling. He leans into Rorschach and puts his hand over his partner's. "What did you see down there, buddy?"

Rorschach doesn't answer. Instead, he takes a deep breath and visibly collects himself. Then he says, "Need to find a way downstairs, Daniel," and walks off, leaving Dan to catch up to him.

It doesn t take long to find the door to the stairwell, and takes even less time to make their way to the basement room where the ceiling gapes open. The corners of the room are choked with debris, but the largest pile of rubble and trash is directly under the hole where the floor above caved in.

Among the welter of debris can be seen a patch of bright color, the edge of a once-shiny child's purse with a swirly psychedelic background. Nearby it is a long brownish white object that Dan recognizes with a sick, sinking sensation as a small human femur. Close to that is a partially exposed ivory dome of skull, to which a few snarled clumps and strands of long, light brown hair are still attached.

Rorschach's voice is thin and hoarse as he points toward the skull, to where the smooth curve of frontal bone is marred by a cracked, caved-in spot the size of a softball. "Said she fell down and hit her head, remember? Must have killed her instantly."

Dan nods. He forbears from saying 'good' out loud, but he does say, "You're right. She never even knew what happened." He reaches out to lay his hand lightly on Rorschach's shoulder. "I'm glad I don't have to think about her lying awake down here for days, calling for help."

Rorschach steps back and bumps into Dan, who places his hands on his partner's upper arms to steady him, holding onto him in a half-embrace because suddenly his skin is crawling and he's feeling cold and a little wobbly himself-and he really needs the contact. And he can feel Rorschach shivering under all of his layers and thinks that this time his partner probably needs the contact too.

When Rorschach speaks, there's a slight quiver in his voice. "She's been awake for a lot longer than that, Daniel. Need to make sure she really gets home this time."

~~o~~o~~

They call the police and tell them that they have found human remains and give them the location. It's not a good idea to stay and talk to the cops in person; their relationship with the police has deteriorated steadily during the past few years. So they wait on a nearby roof instead, and watch as the patrol car and coroner vehicle arrive and they stay there, watching, until the body bag with its pathetically meager content is brought out on a stretcher.

The coroner's team loads the bag into their vehicle and they all leave. The silence left behind is too big for either of them to contain and, uncharacteristically, it's Rorschach who breaks it first. "Done here, Daniel. Let's go."

After they arrive at the Owl's Nest and Archie is docked securely in his berth, Dan doesn't even have to ask; Rorschach follows him upstairs. Neither of them wants to be alone when the sun comes up today.

Coffee is served in the living room instead of the kitchen this time. Dan almost never uses the small fireplace there, but this is one of those occasions when he wants the extra warmth and light to drive back the chill he's still feeling. He lights a fire in the grate, then sits on the couch beside his partner. They both watch the fire and drink their coffee quietly, neither one quite sure how to start discussing any of what's happened tonight-or really, whether they ever want to discuss it at all.

Finally Dan looks at the shimmying surface of the coffee in Rorschach's cup and his partner's gloved hands wrapped tightly around the cup, and says 'fuck it' to himself. He carefully takes the cup out of his partner's hands and puts it on the coffee table. Then he slides an arm around Rorschach's shoulders.

And because he's completely unnerved and needs this more than he needs to maintain his emotional barrier reef right now, Rorschach accepts it and instead of moving away, leans into Dan and allows his head to rest against his partner's shoulder. After a while, Dan murmurs, "At least she finally made it home." Rorschach nods against him and makes a sound that Dan takes as an agreement, but keeps his own thoughts to himself.

They sit together in silence for a long time after that, leaning into each other the way that travellers in the wilderness lean into the warmth of a campfire, until the sun comes up and they sleep.

~~o~~o~~

Years go by and many things change, mostly for the worse. But one thing that does not change is the presence of lost places in the city, places that are burned or abandoned and left to decay. Places which carry their own dark aura that makes most people walk by them a little quicker, and makes them look the other way as they do.

One of these places is a burned-out shell of a small building in a mostly derelict neighborhood in Brooklyn. A careful observer might detect the presence of a few twisted and melted wire dressmaker's frames in the ash and rubble piled inside what's left of its walls. That same observer might also see, if he cared to wait and watch for long enough, a strange thing that happens sometimes.

Every now and then, very late at night, a man dressed like a tattered noir detective magazine's illustration, who wears dancing shadows for a face, comes to stand in front of the ruined building. He stands there in the garbage and asphalt-scented night and seems as if he's listening for something. Sometimes he leaves after only a few minutes. At other times he stands for hours, listening.

He waits, and he listens, but if anything ever wanders there crying to go home, it never makes itself known to him.


End file.
